·Catalunya A proverb says that "The sea clams down if it sees a woman's cunt." (La mar es posa bona si veu el cony d'una dona). The related English word cunt did not become obscene until the 16th century, and today is used abusively more often than not. Anlu is a traditional practice in the Kom communities of the Northwest Region of Cameroon. The practice revolves around groups of women gathering together and engaging in ‘extreme behavior’ to shame and ostracize individuals who break community morals, such as physical abuse of a pregnant woman or incest. The origin of the practice is said to come from a time the women of Kom communities were the only people left to defend the towns from an invading force and so dressed as men and caused the opposition army to flee. The traditional practice became relevant with large-scale, political mobilizations by women from 1958 until 1961. This political anlu paralyzed both traditional and colonial administration in the Kom region and disrupted courts, schools, markets, and travel through the region. Other men of the community would not intervene or interfere in the anlu, and could become a target of anlu if they did interfere, and husbands of women involved would take over household tasks.[4] Anthropologist Paul Nkwi makes clear that while men typically retain power in traditional Kom communities, during anlu "the men are virtually powerless" and the traditional chiefs and councils are weakened.

·The ostracism and punishment of offending individuals would only end when they beg and declare their renunciation of the actions. After this is accepted and a fee is paid, the individual is taken to a stream and immersed in water and the anlu ends.

·FranceThe 16th century Rabelais recounted a popular story about a woman who put the devil to flight by showing him her vulva. Such stories were a folk culture counter-weight to the demonologist doctrines that claimed witches were slaves to the devil and forced to have painful sex with him. These traditions of the powerfully protective vulva predated Christian belief in a devil by a long shot. The story also appears in the 18th century Fables by Jean de La Fontaine.

· GreeceThe Greeks called it Anasyrma, In Hellenized cultures in Italy, Scythia, and elsewhere, Gorgons baring their vulvas and sticking out their tongues were depicted on armor and other items as a way of warding off danger and enemies. We also have the tales of Baubo, a fun-loving, bawdy, jesting, sexually liberated—yet very wise—goddess who plays a crucial, healing role in the Eleusian mysteries of ancient Greece. According to the myths, Demeter was wandering the Earth in deep mourning over the loss of her beloved daughter, Persephone, who had been violently abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld. Abandoning her goddess duties of bringing fertility to the land, she took refuge in the city of Eleusis. The disheartened goddess, disguised as an old woman, was welcomed into the home of the king. Everyone in the king's household tried to console and lift the spirits of the severely depressed woman, but to no avail—until Baubo showed up. The two women started chatting, with Baubo making a number of humorous, risqué remarks. Demeter began to smile. Then, Baubo suddenly lifted her skirt in front of Demeter. with her spirits and confidence restored, Demeter persuaded Zeus to command Hades to release Persephone. So, thanks to the lewd antics of Baubo, all was once again right in the world.

The Putta di Porta Tosa now in the Sforzesco museum in Milan was mounted at an entrance in the city wall. The figure, from the 13th century, shows a woman standing, facing outward (toward potential attackers), holding a knife in one hand and lifting her garment to expose herself with the other.

· Western EuropeSheila-na-gigs in Ireland, Britain, France, occasionally Italy, had this apotropaic power. They were often placed over doorways or window lintels, and also on castle walls in Ireland. Some had been ancient, freestanding, pre-Christian scultures, often placed near water. They were brought into the churches, but others were carved to order and built into the church walls. The old Irish demanded this assimilation, which appears to have been a condition for conversion. In later centuries, especially in early modern times, the priesthood increasingly railed against the customary blessing rites of touching the vulva stones. They removed, hid, and often destroyed them as relics of paganism, as indeed they are. Nevertheless the Irish custom of rubbing the sheila stones continues to the present day.

Some (like the figure with colossal vulva from Oakley, Britain, at left) featured prominent clitorises (especially the English sheilas). Others had deep grooves where people scraped out rock dust for ritual use in blessings, healings, and possibly conception magic.

·IrelandA similar story was told of Cúchullain in the Táin Bo Cuailnge. To oppose him, his uncle sent out 150 women “utterly naked, all at the same time, and the leader of the women before them, Scandlach, to expose their nakedness and their boldness to him.” The famous warrior of Uster lowered his eyes to avoid seeing these bold women and thus being overcome by their power.

·During a long inter-clan feud, men armed with clubs and pitchforks descended on a house in County Galway. A lone woman was at home. She came out and confronted them, raising her skirts above her head, and put them to flight. This happened sometime before World War I, and was later reported by an eyewitness in the Irish Times, Sept. 23, 1977.

The writer Lu Xun heard accounts from his nursemaid of how she and other women stood in rows on city walls and warded off invaders by uncovering their vulvas. This was to prevent them from firing guns and cannons --or to make the weapons blow up. Chinese women did this in the 1774 rebellion of Wang Lun. Even in the late Manchu dynasty, “the most effective deterrant against beseigers was considered to be menstrual blood dropped on them from above.”

·Yunnan (southwestern China, near Thailand). The Lisu tell a story of two tribes fighting a big war in Nujiang valley, precipitated by a dispute over a marriage. “At noon during a major battle, a prestigious middle-aged woman of one side climbed a cliff. She took off her long skirt and waved it. She shouted to stop the battle. The two sides stopped fighting immediately and went back to their villages.” An old man explained the historical tradition: "Women had the right to stop war by the custom of that time. The two sides had to stop fighting if a woman of either side waves her skirt and calls for an armistice.”

·This is a Cosmic form of the goddess Ka\lê, froma book of iconography. Nepal, Himalayas. Kali, as well as other Indic goddesses, can appear in the cremation grounds cemetery the place of death, “dancing” on the corpse.

·Inanna was the goddess of love, war, fertility and lust. She was associated with the celestial planet, Venus. She was known as Queen of Heaven and the word ‘Qu’ can also mean love, sensuality, sexuality, the divinity present in all females. She is also connected with extramarital sex and sensual affairs, prowling streets and taverns for sexual adventure. There are hymns from Sumerian sacred texts which glorify Inanna’s sexuality and sang praises to her beautiful and soft Cunt. Interestingly the Quadesha are also cited in some texts as ‘Sacred Whores’.

Eygpt·In Ancient Canaan, Qudshu or Qetesh is venerated as the fertility goddess of sacred ecstasy and sexual pleasure and is depicted holding snakes in one hand and a lotus flower in the other as symbols of creation. She is called ‘Mistress of All the Gods’, ‘Lady of the Stars of Heaven’ and ‘Great of magic, mistress of the stars’.

·Remembering the ‘CU’, ‘QU’ and ‘KU’ connection, we can understand how ‘Cunt’ is believed to be linked with the popular Buddhist Goddess of Compassion and Mercy is ‘Kuan-yin’ or ‘Quan Yin’ or ‘Kunnon’. She carries the Goddess and Divine Mother aspect of Buddhism and is generally regarded by many as the protector of women and children and is also seen as a fertility goddess capable of granting children. Some say ‘Cunda’ was the name of the Buddha’s mother according to the Japanese but all I can find is that is was possibly the name of a female blacksmith who fed the Buddha his last meal of either mushrooms or pork. He fell violently ill and then became enlightened.

·The River ‘Kennet’ in Wiltshire was known as ‘Cunnit’ until 1740 and many people believe this is related to our favourite word. It is a beautiful, vibrant river and a home to many species of plants, animals and fish. One of the Kennet’s sources is a chalk cave named Swallowhead Spring near Silbury Hill, a prehistoric artificial chalk mound which is part of the UNESCO Heritage site that includes Stonehenge and Avebury. At 40 metres it is the tallest human-made mound in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It is thought to be approximately 4750 years old. Many people believe that it was built as a representation of the pregnant belly of a Celtic Goddess called ‘Sil’ or ‘Sulis’ who was worshipped in that area of Celtic Britain and in north-western France. Her name tells us she was both a sun and an eye-goddess (eyes =wisdom and all-seeing, just like the sun). And local historian, Michael Dames believes that the quarry surrounding it was deliberately shaped to resemble the rest of her head, neck and body. He takes this one step further by suggesting that if Silbury Hill is the pregnant belly, then the cave from which the Swallowhead Spring begins is ‘The Cunt’ with the River Cunnit flowing from it.

·Anatolia (Turkey Lycian women advanced on the warrior Bellerophon whilst exposing their vulvas. The story goes that this invader called on Poseidon to flood Lycia. The Lycian men could not persuade Bellerophon to desist, so “the women, pulling up their garments, came to meet him; and when he, for shame, retreated towards the sea again, the wave also, it is said, went back with him.”

·IranPlutarch also relates that when the Persians were losing a battle against the Medes, they began to retreat, but the women caused them to return to battle by raising their skirts. Then the Persians prevailed.

·MexicoThe women of Tlatelolco broke the alliance with Tenochtitlan. They “flaunted their backsides at the enraged Tenocha visitors.” Nash writes, “Bancroft interprets this behavior as a direct affront by the women, who detested the military alliance with the Aztecs that took their husbands and sons away from them.”

·IndiaEven representations of vulvas can have this danger-warding effect. South Indians made atropopaic pots (“exceedingly obscene” in the eyes of an English observer) smeared them with whitewash, and placed them in grain fields and on house tops to protect from the evil eye. [W.T. Elmore, Dravidian Gods, 1913]

·Vanatinai The people of this southwest Pacific island had a very similar custom: by taking off her outer skirt, a woman signals war or peace or protection of a captive enemy. Vanatinai, northeast of Australia, has been described as one of the most egalitarian societies on Earth today. It is matrilineal and matrilocal.

·MaliMande epics tell of women who quelled armies by raising their robes. Nyana Jukudulaye, wearing 333 bells around her waist at Mande Dakajalan, made the warriors stop fighting by neutralizing the power of their protective amulets: "when she exposed her buttocks in the direction of any battle/ The warriors would cease fire." [Alion Diabaté, in David Conrad “Mooning Armies and Mothering Heroes: Female Power in Mande Epic Tradition.” In Search of Sunjata, ed. Ralph Austen, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999, pp 196, 212]

·NigeriaIn the Women’s War: Ogu Umunwanyi, also known as the Women's War, women stripped off daily clothing and adorned themselves with leaves and ritual regalia to protest colonial oppression. They challenged abuses by colonial warrant chiefs collaborating with British attempts to tax women and census their property. The female rebels processed through the towns and demanded, “Was your mother counted?” The protests started in Owerri province in 1929, and spread from there. The women sang, danced, ridiculed, burned and looted; destroyed hated native courts, cut telegraph wires, marched on the houses of chiefs collaborating with the colonialists, and forced them to flee. To the Brits, they simply said: “Sir, this matter does not concern men.” More Igbo women's powerSenegal The Diola women’s religious group Usana acted as “a female counter-hegemonic power” in the Casamance region of Senegal. The women used ritual nudity in some of the first protests in a wave of popular unrest during the 1970s:

·In some nations of Africa, a woman stripping naked and displaying herself is still considered a curse and a means to ward off evil As women give life, they can take it away. In Nigeria, among other places, women invoked the curse only under the most extreme circumstances, and men who are exposed are considered dead. No one will cook for them, marry them, enter into any kind of contract with them or buy anything from them. The curse extends to foreign men as well, who will go impotent or suffer some great harm.

·The Philippines Kalinga women protested a hydroelectric dam project in Luzon with direct physical action. The women took off their sarongs at a pre-arranged signal and thrashed male workers with them. Then they removed survey tools and guns and the men’s clothes, right down to their socks, and took them to the river. The men hid til dark, then furtively sneaked their way home. “A cultural taboo—not to lay eyes or hands on women… So they knew that their men would be disarmed immediately if there were in front of women who were naked.” The female elders spoke out for “the land which is sacred and beloved, from whose womb spring our Kalinga lives.” [Winifred Milius Lubell, Metamorphosis of Baubo: Myths of Women’s Sexual Energy, Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, pp. 181-3]

·New Guinea and central Australia Women would hold or present their breasts in moments of danger “to communicate that they were mothers and to be spared.” Women of all ages, childbearing or not, performed this act signalling the sacrality of the nurturant power. [Christa Sütterlin, “Universals in Apotropaic Symbolism,” Leonardo, Vol 22, No. 1, MIT Press, 1989, p 73]

·Saameland, Russia, Maghreb A Lapp woman lifted her skirts to a bear to make it go away. Russians told similar stories. In 16th century north Africa, it was lions who ran away at this sight.